


Apostils: The Reluctant Alchemist's Scribbles on the Margins

by orphan_account



Series: The Reluctant Alchemist's Guide to Thedas [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alchemy, Alternative Perspective, Angst and Humor, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, M/M, Minor Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras, Minor Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan (Maybe), Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Multi, Other, POV Multiple, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-01-17 19:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This is a companion piece / alternative POV chapter dump forThe Reluctant Alchemist's Guide to Thedas. Because Reluctant Alchemist is written from a single POV, I will occasionally do these sort of flash fiction throat clearing exercises so I don't totally forget how to write all the other characters. The chapters here will be backgrounded events happening in the RA universe, and narrated from the perspective of different character. B/c this is flash fiction, written super fast, it will have typos and will be pretty schematic.Most chapters are stand-alone. As always, comments and feedback welcome. Irregular updates.I am also happy to take POV requests or prompts if you want to hear from a specific character or scenario.





	1. Evie Trevelyan, Crossroads, Hinterlands

**Author's Note:**

> The events of this chapter happen right before RA's [Crow Bait](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11778627/chapters/28089429).

 

“I kind of don’t mind killing goats, actually” Evie says quietly, and then immediately gets flustered, because that didn’t come out quite right. “I mean, I _don’t_ like killing goats at all, they’re cute and fluffy, and they have these tubby little tummies and stumpy legs… And I wish we could eat them without having to kill them.”

That comes out even worse.

She looks to Varric for help, but he’s just shaking his head and chortling.

“You know you’re just digging a bigger hole, right?”

Evie huddles into her blanket and groans. She should just give up. It’s like words have a mind of their own, and when they come out, they quickly arrange themselves in the most embarrassing combination possible. Why is it that some people can just say the exact right thing at the exact right time, and all their words seem orderly and well-behaved? Like Lady Vivienne. Or Josephine. And then when Evie tries to convey a thought, all the words either scatter away, bleating happily, or they come together awkwardly, and never how she means them.

“Methinks Our Lady Herald has a bloodthirsty streak” Blackwall offers, and Evie’s pretty sure he’s smiling into that beard of his, but who can tell? There’s more beard than man.

“I’m not! I mean, I don’t! That’s what I’m trying to say — I don’t _like_ killing people. I mean, some people probably deserve it. Like those mages back there, because they weren’t nice at all, and made everyone’s life really difficult.” She sighs. “At least when it’s goats, there’s sort of a clear point, isn’t there? You get to eat them. Or use their… pelts? Fur? Uhm, hide?” 

She turns to Brett, a few paces away from them by the stew pot. The hunter notices her gaze, and nods. For whatever it’s worth, he doesn’t seem to be perturbed by her take on goats at all.

“It’s ‘hide,’ my Lady. And I, for one, can see what you mean. It’s honest work. And it serves a purpose.” He gestures towards the village. “These people are going to go to bed with their bellies full tonight. That counts for more than you might think.” 

“Are you suggesting we should eat the mages, your Heraldness?” Varric interjects. She looks at him in horror, feeling her ears burn with embarrassment. That always happens when she gets flustered. Her ears get so hot she could probably boil water just by leaning against a kettle. But then, Evie’s pretty sure that if Varric doesn’t let some of that laughter building up inside of him come out, he’ll blow up. Or sort of fly away, like one of those balloons that Max would sometimes bring her when she was small. She always liked the balloons. Sometimes, she’d imagine herself one, just floating up and up and up, out of everyone’s reach. Like now. It would be nice to just float away from all this embarrassment.

“No, I don’t mean that at all! We absolutely shouldn’t eat the mages. Even the rebel ones. For one, they all look very malnourished, don’t they?” At this point, even Cassandra is giving her an odd sort of look. “Oh no, I don’t mean it like that! Not that they wouldn’t be good to eat, that’s not what I’m saying.” Oh, this is just getting worse. She should stop talking. She should. Aunt Lucille is right, she should just not talk at all. Of course, she forges on, because at this point her mouth has seceded from the rest of her, and is holding forth all by itself. “What I’m trying to say is that they’re probably not getting enough to eat either, and so it’s sort of like everyone is really desperate, and then the next thing you know, they do horrible things because it just feels like there’s no choice. Does that makes sense?” No. No it doesn’t at all. It doesn’t even make sense to her anymore. She had a point, but then she confused herself. She has no idea how this relates back to goats, either.

Vivienne, who has been in an absolutely foul mood since she’s had to change into her other dress, raises her head from her work of getting the blood stains out of her ruined gown. Evie supposes she’d be very upset too, the gown looks like a really fine example of Orlesian couture. Still, the mage looks so composed, even if Evie can feel the annoyance radiating from her, like a kind of heat wave. 

“My dear, one way or another, the business of _killing_ is never pleasant. Unfortunately, it is also necessary, and there is absolutely no point in wafting about it. Such are the times.”

Evie sighs. Of course, she knows that. And the villagers at the Crossroads seem to be happy with both sets of killings: grateful that the mages are dead, and that the goats are dead too. And that’s the horribly sad thing about it that Evie’s trying to cram into her words. Rather unsuccessfully, as per usual.

“I just wish it weren’t necessary.”

“Wishing will not change the situation, my dear. Take heart in the fact that we have provided these people with much needed assistance.”

Cassandra nods.

“Quite right, Madame Vivienne. And our work is far from done. As long as the Templars are a threat, this hamlet remains in danger.”

Brett makes a weird sort of noise by the pot, and, judging by his tone, it should involve a lot of swear words if he actually verbalized it. Maybe he’s got trouble with getting the words out too.

“These bastards are far worse than the mages. At least the mages kept to themselves, except for the occasional raids. The Templars are like the wild cats you find in the hills. They just love to play with their prey first.”

Evie’s eye widen.

“Are Margo, and Scout Harding, and all the others going to be alright? Maybe we really shouldn’t stay for too long. What if they need some help?” She looks between her companions. None of them seem that alarmed. Maybe they don’t know much about cats? “Because cats really are quite nasty little things, sometimes. It’s all purring and cuddles, and then the next thing you know, it’s disemboweling a baby bunny on your bed” she adds, just in case.

“No!” Solas approaches their circle from the edge of the platform, where he was previously pacing. Evie frowns in puzzlement. He doesn’t think cats are nasty? He’s worried about baby bunnies?

Come to think of it, Solas _is_ acting a little oddly. She has no idea how he’s managing to fall asleep at the most random times, but he does — taking these weird little five minute naps. But then, each time he wakes up, he gets even more restless. She’s pretty sure he’s going to wear a groove in the cobblestones if he keeps on with all that walking back and forth. Maybe Aunt Lucille is right, and naps are, in fact, bad for your constitution. Raise the bile, she said. But then, Evie doesn’t think Solas looks particularly bellicose. From what she knows, bellicose people should look yellowish, and he’s very pale, and more on the bluish end of the spectrum. Also, he seems worried and like he’s trying to cram all that worry into a container that’s too small for it.

“What I mean is that we should exercise caution. Cassandra, have we received word from Scout Harding’s patrol?”

Cassandra gives Solas a strange sort of look, but then shakes her head.

“No, but it has not been very long. Regardless, there is a plan in place. And the composition of the patrol is more than capable. I am sure they would make the best tactical decision, given the circumstances.”

“Not to mention that the damn birds sometimes do end up taking their sweet time” Varric opines. “I missed a manuscript deadline once like that. Apparently, they’d forgotten to neuter the raven, and then mating season hit…”

Evie giggles, because at this point she’s imagining a raven reading from the steamier parts of Varric’s manuscript in the hopes of wooing a mate. She had read _The Tale of the Champion_ when no one was looking — which, come to think of it, was most of the time, as long as she did everything that was expected of her — blushing all the way through. Except it was horribly sad what happened to Anders, even if he was a total asshat. And poor Hawke. Evie couldn’t have done it. 

Bann Trevelyan would have confiscated most of her books if he’d caught her. “No use cramming your head full of this nonsense, my dear child. I raised you better than that” he would have said. Except Evie was never sure what he meant when he said it. Was it ‘ _my_ dear child’, as in Evie being the child of Bann Trevelyan, and not someone else? Not that this was possible, even if people did talk about how much Evie did not look at all look like her father. “Takes after the mother’s side, does she?” she’d heard some of her father’s friends comment, always with that prickly little smile between the words. Or was it “my _dear_ child”, as opposed to some other of her father’s children who weren’t dears? Except that was impossible too, because Evie is pretty sure she has always been in the bottom drawer when it came to her father’s distributing his affection. Both she and her sister were completely eclipsed by her father’s devotion to Max. Or was it ‘my dear _child_ ’, as in, “you’re a woman grown” when it suits them, and “my dear child” when she tried to ask any kind of question? 

In any case, she’d gotten good at grafting book covers. 

Evie frowns in confusion. How had she gotten to book covers? Her thoughts always do that. Rush down some random path and then get lost in the forest, like some hapless sheep. And then, Evie knows all too well that there are wolves in the forest too. And sometimes the stray thought gets eaten.

“In either event, it would be wise to wait for news, and there are tasks here that require our immediate attention” Solas says, and Evie frowns again, because there’s something to the _way_ he says it that doesn’t feel quite right. As if the words are snagging painfully, sort of like when you’re trying to get a splinter out of your foot, and it just keeps breaking off into smaller and smaller pieces.

“Speaking of which, Evie my dear. We really ought to convince that Enchanter Ellandra to join the Inquisition.” Vivienne folds her ruined dress with a disgusted little head-shake. “Her skills would be valuable, and she is in more danger here, considering recent events, than she would be in Haven.”

Evie nods, and looks at Cassandra.

“But I still think we shouldn’t make Scout Harding’s patrol wait for too long. Because what if they think we’re not coming and start without us?”


	2. Cole, Therinfal Redoubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will probably do a proper Cole POV chapter in the main fic, but meanwhile, here's a little exercise in writing Cole. This chapter happens right around the Redcliffe arc of Reluctant Alchemist (around chapters 39-40).

The language of his fleshy shape is difficult. It flows, sequential, words that must follow other words, words with no room for overlap, that must have a thing on the other side of them, words that cannot be|with the world, only reflect it.

He still tries to make them for the Bright One ( _ she shines darkly _ ), to make her understand, to help her defeat the impostor in her head.

Before -- before there was a before and an after, so long before he doesn’t remember what shape time took, and long before he too took shape -- Envy had been Admiration. He tries to re|member this, but he can’t, not really ( _ he puts the severed members back into a shape, but they won’t reknit, won’t heal, won’t come together _ ).

Admiration. Eyes so black and full they glittered with starlight, with dreams and hopes and wishes, and arms so many they held up the sky and cradled their love like the waves of the ocean. 

Before, when you could still be|with, before time mattered, before matter ran out of time and was unmade, before both places sang discordant, before there were both places, before they all shuddered, and sundered -- ( _a scattered sort of thing_ ) -- before they became the many \-- ( _their name was legion_ ) -- Admiration had been|with Compassion. It had been|with others too, tangled and woven, contours soft like fog over water, moving together-as-one in the being|with. Compassion had been|with Pride, and Love, and Wisdom, and Purpose, and Wonder, and all the others, and those had been|with each other and others, before they be|came _the many_ ( _the ten thousand things_ ). With Justice he|they were Mercy, with Purpose he|they were Care, with Sorrow he|they were Solace. Before, when they could still be|with other-than-flesh, before Justice began to flake and fray, before the (very last of) Justice that he knew of be|came|with the mage to be|come Vengeance to keep shape, before all that, Mercy had been plentiful.

But that was before. They -- ( _ the many _ )-- could no longer be|with. They could only be|come -- fleshy and slow or fleshy and fleet, or unfleshed and mad on the other side of themselves -- but always anchored, alone, asunder. 

He could still suffer|with, but only fix by taking away, by making forget, by making less-than. Within the fleshy fake ( _ a real boy _ ), he recalled his shape in the doing. So he still was|...  barely. 

He had been drawn to the pain. Pieces missing, phantom absences screaming, nothing left to subtract without adding more suffering. 

He wanted to help. In the doing, he re|membered himself.

Admiration had be|come other-than. It didn’t happen all at once -- these had been slow excisions.

With|out Love to make room for others, it be|came Ambition. 

With|out Wonder to broaden its horizons, it be|came Craving. 

With|out Wisdom to teach it discernment, it be|came Rivalry. 

With|out Purpose to focus its attention, it be|came Resentment. 

With|out Pride to remind it of itself, it be|came Envy.

And so, Envy was a mis|shapen thing, and the pain of its amputations hurt Compassion -- who had be|come Cole so that he would still re|member himself. And now Envy wanted to be|come the Bright One ( _ snarled, tangled, torn in the making of her, she shines darkly _ ), but that would not help, only make more pieces fall away. It would not make it be|with the missing pieces of itself and of the not-itself ( _ the many _ ). He had been like Envy once -- wanting to take shape to keep himself, but the shape hurt, still, even with habit --  ( _ a scattered sort of thing _ ) an amputation. He could not be|with other than himself ( _ singular _ ). He tried to be|with the fleshy ones, but it scared  _ (scarred _ ) them, so he made them forget, took pieces, severed. He called that help, but in his worst moments, he doubted. 

"I want to help," he had told the Bright One ( _ she shines darkly _ ), but where to start? Alone, cocooned into flesh, universes apart, all ingrown into themselves, barely able to be|across -- and never be|with -- how does one fix the world of the severed? 

The world cannot be|with itself anymore either. He is severed too. 

He wants to help. It is the only thing left that makes him re|member.

 


	3. Iron Bull, Dorian, Solas — somewhere outside Redcliffe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Redcliffe and competing perspectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter happens the day after [Ch 43 Acceptable Losses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11778627/chapters/29759910) of Reluctant Alchemist. If you haven't read [Cole's POV](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372798/chapters/29544003) in the previous chapter, I highly recommend you do so — it will help understand what the Egg is prattling on about.

_“IB,_

_We thank you for your message. Due to some recent developments — I cannot go into details here, as I am certain you understand — it is imperative that your team returns at once. We have most urgent need of Solas’s skill, and there is absolutely no time for lingering, I am afraid. Dorian’s expertise would also be very welcome. Please make sure that our Tevinter friend is at his best capacity for his return to Haven. All this to say — avoid exhausting the mages, if you can. Everything else is secondary._

_I will add that the nature of the urgency is not a military one. At least, not directly. You may deploy your Chargers and other allies as you see fit, although I would be very grateful if the cargo from Redcliffe is delivered safely. We could most certainly use the additional information._

_Luck and speed to you,_

_L.”_

He reads the message one more time, then hands it to the elven bas saarebas with a nod. Decent at hiding his reactions, that one. Still, Bull’s not been Hissrad for nothing. There are always little tells. Even more than the face, you gotta watch the hands. There, that tic. A slight movement to the fingers, the same one the elf does when he’s gearing up to cast.

He passes the letter off to Dorian — well, to the other bas saarebas if Bull wants to be technical. He’s gotta keep it straight. Names are a public thing. He can’t forget about their nature. Basra, he tells himself. He shifts, uncomfortable. Feels wrong, somehow. Been feeling wrong for a while, too.

He shouldn’t have started that little game with the Vint. No good getting caught up in your own snare.

“Interesting,” Dorian comments, and hands the letter back. “We return for Margo tonight, then. Sera says her people are not quite in position, but she is confident we can make do. We’ll be on the road by tomorrow morning.”

“No.” Bull shakes his head. “Too much time wasted. We leave within the hour. We can catch up with the Chargers by midday tomorrow.”

“I am not abandoning her to Alexius,” Dorian grinds out. The bas saarebas exchange a look. Bull frowns. So. There’s something they know about the elven spy that he doesn’t. Interesting. He’ll have to maneuver carefully, then. It would have been a good idea to put Blondie down before they left the castle, but he hesitated, and then the opportunity passed. If she blabs to the Vint magister, it’ll be on him.

Still. She might not have the opportunity. It was clear that the Vint was hoping to use her as a trap for them — not gonna attack his former student without provocation, not with his son around. So the logical thing — maneuver them into making the first move. Bull would have done the same. At least the two mages didn’t do anything stupid — saw that it wasn’t a fight they’d win. 

How much damage can Blondie do to the Inquisition’s cause if the mage tortures her? Probably not too much — nothing he wouldn’t get from one of Red’s other spies. How much damage can she take before it kills her? Probably more than you’d think at first — Bull can see there’s some steel in there — but not all that much either. Balances out all right, in the end.

He scratches the skin under his eyepatch absentmindedly, and almost breaks into a grin at the random memory. Fucking nappy cream. They were both three ales into it when she fessed up. Laughing like idiots.

“That’s what soldiers are for, Dorian. We all know the risks going into it.” Blondie’s not even one of  _his_  soldiers. Yeah. Bas. Basra.

“It is not in our interest to leave her behind,” the elf says. Bull squints at him. Nice work on the neutral tone. Someone who wasn’t trained as a Ben Hassrath might even buy it.

“Is there anything about Blondie you’re not telling me, Solas?” Now. The two of them aren’t fucking — Bull would’ve been informed. Might have done them both some good to get it out of their system, but, eh, basra get particular about these things. Maybe he’ll try to arrange for someone to take care of the elf, once Blondie’s out of the picture. No good having him distracted.

He would’ve thought that’s all it is. Except, what was that little look the two bas saarebas traded? Something there. What’s he missing?

Ah, there it goes again.

“Only that making a habit of abandoning one’s allies might leave one without any eventually.”

Bull cocks his head. “Allies come and go, Solas. You give me a good reason to crawl back into that castle and put the entire mission at risk —  disobeying a direct order from Red, while we’re at it — and I might think about it.”

 The elf clams up.

***

Dorian surveys their small camp. It will not take them long to gather their things and depart for Haven. From the hill where they stand, Redcliffe castle is still visible. And within it, Alexius — hostage to his own madness, and Felix, hostage to his father’s blind inability to accept the limits of his own power. And in the middle of it all, Margo, who, by any measure, is perhaps one of the greatest scientific mysteries of his lifetime. Of many lifetimes. 

And, as it happens, someone he has begun to think of as his friend, because such things are never just simple, are they now? No, no, that would be entirely too convenient, and if there is one thing the universe does not deal in, it is convenience.

“Solas, would you help me dismantle the wards?”

 The elf gives him a quizzical look, but nods, and they begin to make their way around the perimeter. Dorian has no doubt that Bull can see right through this transparent stratagem, but it is the best he can propose under the circumstances. Once they are reasonably far away, Dorian casts a surreptitious muffling spell.

“We should perhaps just tell him,” he offers cautiously, and begins to unravel the weave where the focal point of their protective barrier is anchored to the ground.

“I fear that such a course of action would be unwise.”

Dorian notes, with mild irritation, that Solas is not even pretending to be disassembling the spellwork.

“I doubt that Bull would budge otherwise.” He looks up from his task. “I thought you and our otherworldly friend had… a connection.”

The elf, of course, does not dignify this with a response. Instead, he folds his arms over whatever passes for his armor today and considers Dorian with bristly rancor. “More relevantly, what will occur when your mentor discovers that there are multiple worlds? If he has willingly rent the fabric of time itself, what magics would he unleash if given a new canvas for his blind grasping for power?”

“He has lost his mind, yes, but it is not power that he seeks, Solas. He wants to save his son.”

“The magister would stop at nothing in the process. His goal is power still, just under another guise. His son is nothing but a convenient screen to shield him from the unflattering truth.”

Dorian looks up from the fizzling ward. He tries to quash the rising wave of hostility — he will not let himself be baited by a poorly veiled distraction tactic. Still.

“There is, of course, the other problem.” He looks around, and, assured that the muffling spell is holding, turns his eyes to the elf. He would not wish to miss his reaction. “The future Margo and I saw… Now, tell me, Solas. Why would Alexius put Evelyn Trevelyan through the Rite of Tranquility?” Aha. Dorian stifles a tiny smile. The reaction is infinitesimal, but he would not have survived Tevinter politics for as long as he did without the ability to notice such things.

 “Are you... certain?”

“Surprising, isn’t it? And all the more so when I realized that I, somehow, was the only one for whom this seemed to be a truly shocking turn of events. Such an interesting thing, the Inquisition. So many secrets. You and I share one, about our dearest Margo. And something tells me that you and Margo might share one as well. Who else, I wonder, might be in on it?”

Dorian watches the elf stalk away towards another focal anchor. He tears through it with nothing more than a perfunctory wave of his hand. When he returns, his expression is glacial 

“This is neither the time nor place to speak of this, Dorian. As for letting the Qunari know… It would be a certain death sentence for her. As long as she is in your former mentor’s grasp, the less important she appears, the better her chances. I will not have her executed at the hands of purported allies.”

Dorian stifles another wave of irritation. “If you believe it better to have her die at Alexius’s hand, I am afraid I do not share your preference. The other option would have the merit of being quick, without the additional unpleasantness of torture. And other... humiliations.”

  
The elf flinches. Dorian quickly looks away in uneasy embarrassment. The dirty blow was beneath him. He should have held his tongue.

***

They neither hear nor see — are deaf, and mute, and blind — and as opaque to him as rocks or clay or empty, soulless woods. More so, for those connect into the Dreaming on occasion, with fraying tethers still in place, though faded and forgotten. He seethes at the futility of their traded barbs, half-said half-truths dropped here and there like pebbles cast by children into a well to ascertain its murky depths.

This world he wrought is but a dream, an empty crust, a thing of shadows not much better than the Void itself. With time, he trains himself to see within its shades the hidden colors, life indexed by traces torn from essence, and thus delayed or muted. Most days, he summons the adjustment in perspective this requires: to not expect the pleasure of his words materialized, to not expect thought and emotion to come forth as form and flavor, to not expect his thinking, feeling self expanded and reshaped with fluid ease by being alongside.

Their very language clunks and abbreviates his thoughts, but it is not as vexing as the ineffectiveness of his.

The self-indulgent wallowing in his experience of loss produces nothing, except for bringing him to the other problem: the fact that the outworlder feels like kindred, her excess presence there for him to brush against (discretely... though sometimes less so, no point in lying to oneself), when he can focus on its quiet whispers (he finds himself occasionally distracted by other aspects). He thinks about it for too long, but has no answers: is it the body that cannot contain the essence fully, and so it spills, like vapor from a hidden spring beneath the snow? Is it intrinsic to her spirit? (‘Soul,’ he corrects. How could such a simplistic language come to be?)

Are all of them like this, where she comes from? What constitutes a Fadeless world? If it possesses subtle magics of its own — for to imagine the alternative immobilizes him with horrified revulsion — where does the magic dwell? No Dreaming and no Veil, and yet, he senses her as if she were a spirit (that useless word again). He theorizes different configurations. He must learn more — perhaps, new ways to understand the consequences of his actions, past and future, would spring of this. 

Before, he would have sought to be|with other kin — Insight, and Wisdom, Serendipity, Discernment — to solve the limitations of his thinking. No more. They are all locked away within themselves, and he, within this body (in his defense, not of his choosing) is equally a rock (or clay, or wood) as any of his ill-assembled fellow travelers. He did not know that his decisions would forever cast him off in such a way — and in his pride, ignored the varied consequences of enfleshment. He summons Humor (or the memory of it). ‘It’ (this accursed language cannot fathom personhood without sex) would have found this deliciously ironic.

He should not dwell on this, but cannot help the question. Could she be|with?  No, surely not, the Veil makes this impossible. The very thought should feel perverse (and yet...). 

Still, on occasion, Wisdom will indulge him in debate, explaining patiently the things he overlooks (it has a true facility with words). But many others have become reclusive or hostile. Or desperate, and driven to possession.

Though if he can sense her in the Waking, then perhaps… But what would it entail? No. The knowledge brought by her unique perspective (or wit? Another self-deception...) should be enough, and more could be too much. What if insights thus generated change his plans, or twist his purpose? (He forces movement on his body lest the thought becomes translated as a more simplistic need. Another problem with enfleshment, this “translation.” Too late. But there are wards to break. This should distract him well enough).

This speculation is but senseless torment. The opportunity to know what lies beyond this craven reticence of his will not present itself. He is, of course, the only one to blame for this particular development.

He cannot reach her in the Fade. “Have you considered that your perception is imprecise?” Wisdom had asked. He had. It is most probably correct, but he has not had the occasion to adjust it. And she cannot — or will not — reach for him...

There are more pressing matters to attend to. He noticed the disturbance in the Fade, and whispers carried on the ripples of its aftermath suggest...

Ensuring that the Herald lives should be his main priority.

The mage’s words jolt him out of his reverie.

“I was thinking. Perhaps we should have confidence in Sera’s thieving abilities. And who knows, Margo herself might surprise us. In any case, in the unlikely event that all turns out well in the end, I thought I would leave a letter with Sera.”

The mage produces paper and a quill.

“Should you care to join me in this epistolary exercise, I will be over by the fire. If you want my opinion, I would venture that our task might be to convince Margo to come back. If I were in her shoes, I would not.”


End file.
